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“What do you think about when you think about love?”
“What?” Sebastian pushed himself up on one elbow, blinking down at the other boy sprawled across the tiny bed. His legs half dangled off the edge, his eyes turned upward towards the ceiling, glass-like gaze not quite focused on it but rather the infinite void behind his lids.
“I just,” Ominis started, rubbing at his left eye with the back of his hand. “Everyone talks about love like it's this magical thing. That when you fall ‘in love’ you'll just know and everything will be right in the world.” His brow furrows and he tipped his head in Sebastian’s direction. “Surely that's not what love truly is, is it?”
Sebastian flopped back against his pillow with a soft thump, the mattress springs giving way underneath him. A warm breeze washed over the pair from the open window, stirring his thin curtains and brushing his hair. He had never really thought about love before, the word far too grown-up when his mind was preoccupied with playing with Ominis in the woods and being a terror to his sister Anne.
His eyes also turned to the ceiling, trained on the soft, glowing star he had begged his uncle for a few years ago, which felt exceptionally childish at almost thirteen. But the plastic shape was far easier to digest than the gaping philosophical abyss Ominis had welcomed into their sacred space, yawning between his ‘forgotten’ homework and the ever-expanding pile of laundry he had to do.
“I don’t know,” Sebastian admitted after a moment, his teeth finding the inside of his cheek.
“Love is…” His mind drifted to the little things he enjoyed. “Well, I suppose love is the warm cookies your aunt always makes us, the gooey ones with the marshmallow centers.”
Ominis hummed, pondering.
“And it's that pond with the koi,” Sebastian gestured to the window, vaguely. “The one we go to when it gets too hot and we sink our toes in the mud.”
“Well, that's not really love. We can't kiss cookies or marry a pond.”
“No, I suppose not.” Sebastian snorted before turning over, head resting on a bent arm to properly look at him. He traced the scattering of spots on the other boy's cheeks, the constellations he had once matched to the sky. A strand of blond hair had fallen out of place, and Sebastian absentmindedly brushed it back into place. “I guess we must be too young for love then.”
Ominis didn’t answer right away. Outside, cicadas buzzed, chasing each other in the fading sun. Somewhere downstairs, a door creaked, and Solomon shuffled in after a late night at this job or that. Sebastian let his eyes slip shut, soaking in the feeling of just being near his best friend.
When Ominis finally spoke, it was far softer. “Maybe love is when you feel safe.”
Sebastian's eyes opened. “Safe?”
“Yes,” Ominis shifted, fingers curling into the blanket. “Like when I know where you'll be without needing to call out for you. Or how you describe things to me in a way that feels like I'm not missing out.”
A soft smile tugged at Sebastian’s lips, at the same time something tightened in his chest.
“I'm sure that's what love would feel like.”
“If that's love,” Sebastian said, words jumbling a little awkwardly. “You sure have loads of it.”
Ominis let out a small laugh. “Yeah, from you, maybe.”
“Of course,” Sebastian said, rolling his eyes. “I love you too much to have you smack into a wall and embarrass me in front of the girls.”
“You're an idiot,” Ominis nudged him away.
The conversation drifted from there, the way it often did in those years. They started talking about the latest sporting drama, then about the absolutely awful haircut a classmate had gotten last week.
The sun dipped lower before disappearing along with the buzzing of the cicadas. It wasn't long after that Ominis started snoring against the pillow he so often commandeered. Sebastian lay awake, though, staring up at the dim stars and wondering what love would look like for him.
If someone were to ask him, years down the road, what love was, perhaps he would remember this afternoon. How neither of them could think of love without the other.
How, even before they had the language to describe it, he already knew what love was.
Love was a boy named Ominis Gaunt.
It always had been.